Silent, and Insecure
by WalkerShawna
Summary: The newest Surgical Resident at San Jose Saint Bonaventure Hospital, Dr. Emilie Airan, is struggling. She's struggling with her surroundings, having recently moved to California with her autistic daughter, Hannah, after having lived in Texas for six years, working at one of the biggest and most elite hospitals in the state, and with her own demons, when she meets Dr. Shaun Murphy.
1. Chapter 1: To San Jose

_San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital welcomes Dr. Emilie Airan (pictured below with her daughter, Hannah Grace, and their dogs, Sadie and Buddy) to our surgical team. Dr. Airan is an Indian-American, originally from Kavali, Andhra Pradesh, India and has been in the United States since the age of eighteen. She was previously employed at College Station Medical Center, in College Station, Texas, after graduating with her medical doctorate from Baylor University in Waco. She completed her BSN (or bachelors of Science in nursing) from Louisiana State University in 2011, her Master's in Surgical Theory from Texas A &M University in 2015 and her medical doctorate from Baylor in May 2018. _

_Dr. Airan is mixed-race, with a Chinese mother and an Indian father and is the oldest and only female child of six, but has lost two of her brothers and her sister-in-law previously. As such, she is fluent in Chinese, as well as Hindi, Spanish, Italian, French, and English. Her English is heavily accented, as it is her sixth language, so she has to be carefully listened to to be understood and may not understand idioms._

 _She has been married twice, to American men, and has a young daughter, Hannah Grace, who she absolutely adores. Dr. Airan also is wheelchair-bound, due to having her legs blown off to her hips as a Marine stationed in Yemen in 2002. She suffered these injuries by stepping on an explosive device in the same operation where her best friend was killed._

 _She is a practicing Hindu, but is open to the possibilities of other religions. She enjoys religious study and owns at least one copy of every religious text in existence. She also enjoys hiking, and road trips with her daughter. Dr. Airan was the four-time winner of College Station Medical Center's "Most Compassionate Young Surgeon" award and is specializing in pediatric surgery—in memory of her young son, who died at three years old due to a surgical mistake._

 _Medical malpractice_ , Dr. Shaun Murphy immediately thought as he read the short missive. He was interested in meeting this Dr. Airan, though. He had never found himself to be a fan of gossip and rumor mills, having borne the brunt of many of them throughout his life and career, but he had found himself listening as the nurses had talked about her.

"I heard that Dr. Airan's brilliant. Got a lot of book smarts, but a lot of common sense too. She has to have a lot of book smarts to get through Baylor at the top of her class."

"I agree. She surely has to. But I also heard she's got beauty too. She's a stunningly beautiful woman, if the picture on our email is anything to go by."

Shaun agreed wholeheartedly with that assessment as he looked at her picture. She was indeed stunning. He could see some facets of both her heritages in her—her dark eyes were a little more slanted due to her Chinese heritage and her skin was naturally tanned, instead of pale, showing her Indian ancestry.

Her daughter—Hannah Grace—was much the same—if two to three shades lighter—and he found himself laughing at the expression of her face in the picture. It was a cross between her _This smells disgusting_ face and her surprised face. Her mother wore an easy smile that showed her brilliantly white teeth as she leaned back against her daughter.

Even the dogs—Sadie and Buddy—looked happy in the picture. Sadie was a little white poodle, while Buddy was a chocolate lab. They were both crowded into their human mother's lap, Sadie curled up underneath her right arm, while Buddy was laying down at her side. He smiled, before shutting his laptop and neatly putting it away. Shaun fell to sleep that night with Dr. Emilie Airan on his mind.

The next day was Monday. Monday, for Shaun, meant breakfast with Dr. Aaron Glassman, who had been his mentor and father figure since he was fourteen. Monday also meant chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. He was able to get to St. Bonaventure on time, and with all the appropriate clothing on in the correct order.

The hospital cafeteria was packed at this time of the morning, everyone getting their breakfast and beverages—some opted for orange juice, others for milk, and he noticed a tiny figure in a wheelchair at the coffee machine with a coffee cup in hand, but this person was too small to reach the machine.

Thin hands stretched up over their head as they tried to reach it. Shaun was able to see their back—this was clearly a woman, with long, thick curly hair that was jet black and pulled back into a high enough bun that it just looked like it would give her a headache. She was dressed well, unlike most of the nurses and surgical doctors, making her stick out like a sore thumb.

She wore a khaki pleated skirt, and a sleeveless white top. Shaun noticed that she seemed to not have legs attached to her body, but also noticed that the skirt hid her injuries. He felt bad for her—he didn't know why—so he actually _left_ his place in line to go help her.

The young woman turned and he saw the same face he had seen in the picture. The words came out before he could stop them. "Dr. Airan?"

She didn't speak in response, but looked up and smiled at him.

He gently took her cup. "Do you need help?"

She looked down, in shame, but nodded.

"It's okay to need help. Do you want me to help you get your coffee?"

She nodded again.

Shaun took her cup, quickly pressed the buttons that she pointed to, and then stood there as her coffee brewed. She—Emilie, he now remembered, but thought that it was inappropriate to call her by her first name when she couldn't tell him if that was okay with her—gently smiled up at him.

"I am Dr. Shaun Murphy." He introduced himself and Dr. Airan offered him her hand. He shook it and read her lips as she mouthed _thank you_. He nodded. "It is my pleasure to help. What are you having for breakfast today? Have you decided?"

She nodded, pointing to the omelette section of the menu.

"Which omelette? Maybe I can help you order."

She pointed to the vegetable omelette—it was an omelet with spinach, red bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms—and he raised his eyebrows. "Like vegetables much, do you?"

Dr. Airan grinned, and nudged him, as if to say, _nah._

Shaun smiled back, and then got to ordering for them. Lisa—the cafeteria lady who always made his pancakes—handed them over for him to inspect them. "Monday, right?"

"Yes, it is Monday." He took them. "But I am helping a friend right now, so can you hold onto those for just a second?"

"Sure." Lisa looked a little confused—he had never told her that before, but set them aside on a table. Shaun then went up to stand next to Dr. Airan as she tried to sign her order to a person who didn't understand her language. He ordered, on Emilie's behalf, in his usual, blunt way. "She would like a vegetable omelette."

"Fair enough."

Shaun smiled, turning to Emilie calmly. "Have you got it from here?"

She nodded. _Thank you._

He then got his chocolate chip pancakes and his milk, going outside to sit at his and Dr. Glassman's usual table. Emilie came out a minute later, holding her full plate in one hand and her coffee in the other. She passed right by them, her eyes—the exact shade of a mocha— lighter now from the sunlight, all the different shades of hazel, gold and even some shades of green visible in them.

She wore a slight smile— _a beautiful slight smile_ , Shaun thought to himself—but looked as though she was deep in thought about something. He hated coffee, but knew that he loved her from the first moment those mocha-colored eyes met his own. There was no confusion at all.

Her eyes were like her soul—sometimes dark, sometimes light—with a kaleidoscope of everything—her past, her present and her future—within them. He tore his eyes away from hers, but the image remained in his head.

He watched her as she rolled herself over to a handicapped reserved table—by herself—and took out a set of beads. These were silver, and the entire thing was small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. She held these in her right hand, draped them over her middle finger, closed her eyes and began to whisper the chants to herself.

Of course, he couldn't hear her, but could tell by the movement of her lips that, whatever it was, it was the same thing over and over. _Oh, yes, she is a Hindu. It must be some kind of prayer._

It seemed more and more like a ritual, he thought, as she recited the same prayer no less than 108 times before opening her eyes, putting her prayer beads away, and beginning to eat her breakfast as if reciting a single prayer 108 times was the most normal thing. Dr. Glassman came to sit across from the young man that he had mentored since the age of fourteen. He noticed where Shaun was looking.

"That's the newest member of the surgical team. Her name is Dr. Emilie Airan. Have you met her?"

"I have. I helped her order her breakfast this morning. She is very sweet."

"She is, yes. Wonder how she ended up here, though? She's originally from Texas."

"No. She's originally from India, but she lived in Texas."

"She's former military, you know. She served as a Marine, until she suffered an injury related to a bomb and had to retire. She became a doctor because of the doctors who treated her. She faced a lot of prejudice for that decision, though, and you probably noticed that she doesn't speak. She can speak, she has the mechanics, but post-traumatic stress disorder keeps her from doing it, because of the fifteen years' worth of horrors she witnessed in Yemen and other places."

"So her reason for not speaking is psychological?"

"Yes. It is. She never said one word, but communicated with us through a voice generating app. She proved herself worthy of a place here. She's still in therapy for PTSD, ten years after her diagnosis. She said that it helps her deal with her civilian life. Her dog, Buddy, is a retired bomb sniffing dog that served with her in Yemen. She was his handler and he led the searchers to her after she was injured. It was about the most fateful story I've ever heard and Dr. Airan even said herself that God had a hand in that. She loves that dog more than most people."

Shaun smiled. "That was a nice story."

Glassman raised an eyebrow, and Shaun could feel his face heat up. "I mean, the last part, with Buddy." He quickly defended himself, and Glassman smiled.

"Yes. She has worked hard and faced so many people that told her that she could never be a doctor, that her dream was impossible. She gave them the metaphorical middle finger and proved them all wrong the day she was hired."

"What about her family?"

"Her mother was murdered in 1986—she was seven. Her father's still alive, but is in his seventies now. She said that he was wealthy, but never has given her so much as a dollar since she came to America."

"Wow. What an…" Shaun motioned violently to get his point across.

"Exactly. She's extremely sweet for what she's been through."

"Yes, she is." Shaun was watching Emilie eat, from the corner of his eye. She ate off her plate, just like anyone else, but put it in her lap, so that she could reach it better. He made a mental note to look at getting her a little table to fit in her lap, against the armrests of her chair, and noticed that she didn't drink her coffee until after she ate her food (probably didn't want to spill it everywhere) and he made another note to look at getting her a cupholder for her chair. She liked coffee, it seemed, because those mocha colored eyes perked up after the first drink.

"She likes coffee." He accidently said out loud.

"Well, most of us do. As doctors, we have to practically live on caffeine and, so, we're judgy people about it. Dr. Airan is not much different."

"She likes omelettes. I do not like eggs."

"I know you don't, Shaun. But she does."

"I love her."


	2. Chapter 2: Emilie's First Day

My clean dark blue scrubs, and my _San Jose St. Bonaventure_ jacket were tumbling in the dryer with my four-year-old daughter, Hannah Grace's several pairs of jeans, navy leggings, and little navy dresses, while I was in the kitchen, making dinner for us—I was baking salmon, with brown rice. I had to sneak in vegetables, certain fruits, and grains in on her diet, because she was severely autistic and insisted on eating the same things every day.

It was her way of holding onto her routine. She ate a banana for breakfast, a hamburger and fries for lunch and whatever I made for dinner. I tried to variate her dinner, changing protein sources, grains, fruits, and vegetables. She didn't like variation, but I explained that it was for the benefit of her health. Hannah was sitting at the kitchen table, watching me check the brown rice, carefully stirring the rice in the pot.

She jumped down suddenly, running from the room. I watched her from the corner of my eye, as she went into my bedroom. That was odd, but I understood what she went in there for, when she came out with a backpack that she'd gotten for me as a birthday present. I had never used it before—I had saved it, because Hannah had given it to me—and it was an interesting pattern, but I would need a backpack to hold all my stuff for tomorrow. When I said 'an interesting pattern,' I meant that it was a black _Hello Kitty_ patterned backpack.

I smiled at her kindly, as she sat the backpack down. "Mommy, will you take this to work with you tomorrow?"

 **Are you sure you want me to, baby? It might get messed up.**

"It's okay. I want you to carry it, so you don't get nervous for your first day tomorrow."

She loved salmon, but I usually couldn't afford to buy it that often, due to the fact that my ex-husband, the _lovely_ piece of humanity that he was (note my mental sarcasm), beat the God out of me, left me for dead, and walked out on us three months ago when we were still living in College Station, Texas. The day his trial ended and he was sentenced, I took Hannah and hightailed it out of the state. I was going to give my girl a good life, a better life with me than me and Adam ever were able to give her.

Adam was currently in a men's prison within the Texas Department of Corrections, three or four states away from where Hannah and I were now, serving a sentence of 40 years to life for—how was it they phrased it?—attempted murder, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, domestic violence, child abuse, child neglect, grievous bodily harm, and a whole list of other charges.

Hannah would actually be a middle-aged adult and I could be long dead by the time he ever saw the light of day from beyond the prison walls again. We came to California to start over again, as I had been here, there and everywhere else in my life, running from the issues and problems that I encountered. The real reason behind why I could never stay in one place for very long was that I never really bonded with the people I met in any one place.

I had gone from Kavali, India, where I was born and raised (on the dirt ground where I spent most of my days), to America—Louisiana and Texas for college, then to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to Montreal, Canada with the Marines (I was a combat medic), to Rio, then back to India, before finally ending up marrying Adam (or, as I thought of him, Adamn—as in Adamn mistake) and ending up coming back to America and living in Texas again.

About that time was when Hannah was born. Adamn always doubted her paternity, always having been very clear that he never wanted her, and as a result, I never had him put on her birth certificate. He was her father, but he couldn't give a rat's rear end about her, nor about the fact that she was so severely autistic, so I raised her alone for most of her young life, even before he went to prison.

Hannah knew me as Mommy and she knew next to nothing about her father, other than that he was an alcoholic who stayed gone for days at a time and never wanted her. As a result, she always had clung to me to be her protector and I refused to ever let her down. Hannah sat quietly at the kitchen table until dinner, playing with her toy stethoscope—she was often fixated on that toy stethoscope, and didn't seem to connect with me at times; I turned my attention to the large _Hello Kitty_ backpack.

The bag was cute—Hannah had gotten me the bag, because she loved _Hello Kitty_ and wanted me to love it too—with a large outline of the kitty made of smaller kitties and a big red sequin bow on the big kitty's ear. There was a zippered pocket on the front of the bag that was a perfect size for my Epi-Pens. I had three Epi-Pens to carry around with me, and I couldn't carry them all out in the open.

One was for my nut allergy, the others for my dairy, and shellfish allergies. I also wore a medical alert bracelet on my right wrist that read like this:

 _Emilie Alison Airan_

 _DOB: 24_ _th_ _December 1979_

 _Mute—understands ASL_

 _Diabetic (T1)—no insulin shots or IV—I have a pump—if pump starts flashing red, low insulin_

 _Epileptic—medicated—may vomit—if found having a seizure, turn me on my side and back away—medication in backpack_

 _Asthmatic—I carry an inhaler_

 _Allergies: shellfish, dairy, nuts—I have labeled Epis for each one—use Epi and call 911_

I left the backpack on the chair, as the salmon and brown rice finished cooking. It was time for dinner. I dished out a generous helping of brown rice that served as a bed for the salmon that I placed on top of it. I started with serving Hannah hers, adding asparagus to her plate. She loved asparagus, and kale, so I did my best to add those as much as she would eat them.

Hannah smiled as she took a bite of her dinner, and I smiled, too. Hannah was such a picky eater because of her autism that it was difficult to get her to eat anything besides bananas for breakfast and hamburgers for lunch. She was obsessive over toys and friends, and wanted nothing to do with eye contact, but she was my baby, and I would never change her.

Ever.

We ate dinner together, and then Hannah was off to watch one of her favorite movies—Scooby Doo—that she'd seen a thousand and five times, but wanted to watch again. I stood in the living room, hanging and folding laundry. I hung my girl's dresses, pants, and leggings, laying my scrubs aside to be folded, placed in the backpack and brought to St. Bonaventure with me in the morning.

I then looked back at the Hello Kitty backpack that Hannah had given me. She didn't want me to be nervous about my new job, and I would be lying to myself if I said that I wasn't.

I had impeccable credentials when I applied to St. Bonaventure, having done and assisted on thousands of surgeries in my career, most of them successful, but the hospital's president, Dr. Aaron Glassman, had had to fight for me to be hired solely because of my mutism. I had heard that he had had to fight to get another surgical resident hired too, because he was both autistic and had savant syndrome.

Damned Board of Employment.

Of course, I guessed they had their concerns and some of them were valid. Like the fact that I was going to be a surgeon, and I couldn't communicate with my patients' families, but I had requested to complete most of my surgeries alone, or with one other person who knew I was mute and could help me when I needed it. I supposed that I was nervous, and had good reason to be, despite my best _I'm okay_ face.

I hid my feelings with it and had become so good at saying that I was okay that not even Hannah knew it when I wasn't. I felt like a hypocrite, telling her to never be afraid and never fear telling people how she felt, but at the same time, hiding my own feelings. The truth was that I suffered from depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, but Hannah wouldn't understand that Mommy's really sad and scared all the time, so I got up each morning, and made it through each day—somehow—for my girl.

I had to make a new life for her, and that didn't involve giving in to my personal demons. I had chosen a house a little more than an hour away from San Jose—in Mount Hamilton, California—and our home was set on 2 acres of land; it was an old home, built in the 1960's during the massive influx of hippie and drug culture into California. I had done some serious work on the place, though, so that it didn't look like a rainbow threw up all over the house.

My home was actually a beautiful, peaceful place now; it was large, with three bedrooms—mine, Hannah's, and a spare one that we kept for overnight guests. The walls of my bedroom were a dark chocolate color with coordinating colors of tan and ivory for the bedding, while Hannah's was a soft pink on the walls, with white furniture, and white bedding and the spare was painted a soft sage green with green sheets on the bed and a green floral blanket over it. I had done the room up that way as a default, since we honestly didn't have many guests, other than my brothers sometimes, and they didn't care what the room looked like.

The scrubs I had were plain navy blue ones, that were non-descript and no one would be able to distinguish me from anyone else—nurse, doctor, or otherwise—other than the color. I also had a jacket that read _San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital_ and a second white doctor's coat with matching gray lettering that read like this:

 _San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital_

 _Emilie Airan, MD_

As I was hanging my scrubs, I thought back to my school days, when I wore those ugly ass purple scrubs because I was in LSU's nursing program. Not one of the nursing students in my class could pull those off even halfway decently. I completed my bachelor's in nursing at Louisiana State University's School of Medicine in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2011, my Master's in Surgical Theory at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas in 2015, and my medical doctorate at Baylor University in Waco, Texas in 2018—just earlier this year.

I was the first in my family to complete two college degrees at the time that I did—my twin brother, Evan, completed his double Master's in Forensic Science and Pathology from the University of West Virginia at Beckley in 2016, and was now working with some federal investigative service in Washington, D.C., as he put himself through to get his doctorate—and the first and only to complete a doctorate at all, let alone a medical doctorate.

I was very proud of my brother for doing what he did every day, but I liked my patients to be alive, thank you. I came to visit him sometimes, he came to visit me sometimes, and we had a fantastic relationship—though it was mostly through text messages. Speaking of text messages, I saw my phone light up with one from Evan right then.

 _Good luck at St. Bonaventure tomorrow, Em. I hope it goes brilliantly._

 _ **Thanks, bro. I hope so too. Hannah misses you, and wants to visit soon. When are you free from work?**_

 _Well, we have a case right now, but after the case is done, you can come and visit. I want to introduce you to the people I work with. Would you and Hannah be okay with that?_

 _ **Sure. Just tell them that I'm mute and she's autistic beforehand, so they aren't surprised.**_

 _Okay. I can do that. I would say you can come in about two weeks._

 _ **Okay. I'll check and see when St. Bonaventure will give me days off.**_

I then began to switch my backpacks, having decided—against any possible teasing I might endure—to carry the Hello Kitty backpack to work with me. My daughter had asked me to and I was going to. I packed my Epi-Pens in the front pocket of the bag, each one labeled with the allergy that it was meant to treat, and my various medications—seizure medication, my birth control—I used pills—my vitamins, my seasonal allergy medicine, and my inhaler—along with my wallet and phone. I brought my white doctor's coat as well, folding it neatly and placing it in my bag, even though I would be wearing the scrubs tomorrow, because I was assisting Dr. Melendez—my boss—and the team on a heart surgery.

I guess his idea was just throwing me headfirst into surgeries with the team, and force me to get used to working with them. I was perfectly fine with that—not that I was given that much of a choice—but I knew that it wouldn't be the easiest thing ever to do. I was commonly on the receiving end of people's annoyance, and I ignored it, but that didn't mean that it didn't affect me.

I wanted to speak, but I had spent so many years being silent that I could never get away from what I knew. I couldn't afford surgery anyway, and even if I could, I wouldn't change myself. I zipped my backpack up, leaving it on the kitchen table, and went to the living room, turned on the TV and limply flipped through the channels. I left the sound on for Hannah, but turned on the closed captioning for me.

What was on tonight? Adventure Time was on the cartoon channel—that and Dora the Explorer were Hannah's favorite shows—but I found House, MD, and watched that. I hated House—he was a complete asshole to most of his patients—but that was the only thing that I could find that wasn't for kids, a soap opera, or just disgustingly violent. It was really sad that _House_ was the middle ground.

I watched the episode of _House_ and the episode of _CSI_ , then the TV station—I didn't even know which one this was—went into a Harry Potter marathon. Well, I went from House to Hogwarts in about three hours of TV programming. I never liked Harry Potter—Daniel Radcliffe had really stepped up his acting, but he was eleven at the start of the movies and he acted still a little like a kid—but I was too tired to bother changing the channel, so I sat there and watched three of the seven movies, before I finally fell asleep in my chair, after turning the TV off.

I slept the whole night in my chair in the living room, waking up at five A.M. to wake Hannah up for daycare. I had chosen a daycare that was right across the street from San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital, so that I could be as close to Hannah as possible during the day while she was at daycare. It was also a good idea in case something happened to her, because I would know. She was not the easiest person to wake up, and I had to be persistent, but she was up and about by 5:30.

I allowed her to pick out her own clothes, only asking her to change if her choices made absolutely no sense. She came down after a minute, wearing a navy and white dress, and her white shoes. Her long dark hair was tangled, though, and I had to detangle it before braiding it back for her.

I myself owned a minimal amount of makeup—mascara, powder foundation, and lip gloss. I did that to show my girl that she wasn't required to wear it and I myself didn't bother with it most of the time. I smiled at her. **Can you stay here while Mommy gets dressed?**

"Sure, Mommy."

I went to get dressed, dressing in my navy blue scrubs. The scrubs revealed that I had two tattoos that I had gotten when I was twenty, on my chest and arm. The first read like this:

Death leaves a heartache that no one can heal, but life leaves a memory that no one can steal.

On my right arm was a second tattoo and this was painful to look at. It read like this:

Dreams last for so long, even after you're gone.

2000 was a rough year for me; I lost my son to cancer, my brother to war, and my husband to murder in the space of eight months. My brother, Kevin, had been killed in a car accident the September before my son died on New Year's Day. I had to force myself not to cry at the memories.

It would be warm today, I thought as a distraction, so I added a light jacket, socks and my tennis shoes, pulling my long dark hair back into a ponytail. The only makeup I put on was mascara and lip balm on my lips, because they were peeling from being so dry. That was it.

I grabbed the Hello Kitty backpack, my truck keys, and headed out the door. My truck was a black 2006 F-150 that was so large that I had to give Hannah a boost when she first rode in it. I helped her into her place in the back seat, as she crawled to her booster seat and popped down into her seat, before buckling herself in.

She was excited and nervous at the same time—I could see it in her eyes—and I agreed internally. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I smiled at her in the rear view, as I pulled out onto the road ahead of us. There was one main road that led from our home to the rest of Mount Hamilton, and I then got onto Highway 130 and drove calmly through the rest of the community, until I reached the intersection of the highway and Quimby Road.

I then turned left onto Quimby Road, and drove for about nine miles before turning right onto the East Capitol Expressway and used the right lane to merge onto Interstate 680 South; I then continued onto I-280 North and then immediately took the 11th Street exit, turned right onto South 11th Street and then left onto Santa Clara Street.

I drove down Santa Clara Street, growing nervous now since I had no idea where I was going, and just happened to see the sign declaring the large, multi-story building further down the street and to the left to be _San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital_. Yes! I found it! Hannah grinned at my happiness, and I pulled into the small parking lot of the daycare that was across the street from the hospital.

I walked Hannah into the daycare, and wrote my contact information down on a sheet of paper that I pulled out of my notebook.

Dr. Emilie Airan

Surgical Resident, San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital

Cell-408-231-6048

My child's name is Hannah Grace. She is severely autistic, but exceedingly verbal, so she will tell you when she's uncomfortable. Be very careful when touching her—get her okay before you touch or hug her—and she's very rigid with her diet. She will only eat a hamburger and fries for lunch, though, so please accommodate her. Her sensory overloads are severe—she will kick, shake and scream—but don't time out her for that because there's nothing she can do. She may run away and come to find me if things get too difficult for her—I work just across the street—so send me a text message at the number I have given you if you cannot find her. I am mute.

I could see that the daycare worker was immediately nervous at the thought of Hannah running away, but she had done that before, and it was best to warn them ahead of time. She was a runner, who ran away from difficulty, and I suppose she got that from me. I then bent down to my girl's level and signed to her.

 **Be a good girl, and try not to run away, okay? I have to go to the hospital now. I'll pick you up after my shift, barring nothing really bad happens, okay?**

 _ **Okay, Mommy. I will.**_

 **Good girl. I'll see you later.**

 _ **Bye!**_

I thought that Hannah had gone with me as far as the door, but she was still waving when I moved my truck to the hospital parking lot and was walking up the front steps into the hospital. I turned back to wave at her, and point at the door. She understood this to mean _go inside_ and did, but I saw one of the other doctors—a tall dark haired young man—smile, and heard him speak. "The little girl yours?"

I nodded. **Yes. That is my Hannah.**

 _ **You're the new surgical resident, no? I'll be working with you. I'm Dr. Jared Kalu.**_ He thrust out his hand to me, and I gently shook it.

 **I am. My name is Dr. Emilie Airan. I am very pleased to meet you.**

 _ **They were right.**_

 **Who was right?**

 _ **The general consensus from the hospital before you came was that you were beautiful. That assessment was more correct than I thought.**_

I found myself blushing lightly, but my skin was just a tad too dark to show it, and I smiled. **Well, aren't you sweet?**

 _ **I'm not trying to be sweet, I'm trying to charm you out of your panties.**_

Another man—this one clearly Hispanic—interrupted us, having clearly understood the whole conversation. "Kalu! Shut up! That is completely inappropriate!"

I blushed deeper, but shook my head at him and put one finger to my full pink lips. I could deal with this. _**One—this isn't a club and two—keep dreaming, sweetheart, because that won't ever happen. I'd rather have sex with a rock.**_

Kalu's eyebrows hit his hairline and I gave him a grin that said very clearly, _don't play sexual word games with me; I'll win every time_. I then turned to the Hispanic man. **I am very pleased to meet you, sir.** I shook his outstretched hand. **My name is Dr. Emilie Airan. Who are you?**

 _ **I am Dr. Neil Melendez. I am your attending surgeon. And nice job for pulling out the 'nice to meet you' before the 'who are you?' That shows great integrity.**_

 **I like my integrity, so I won't make a joke about your current facial expression.**

Melendez smiled a little—he knew what I was talking about. _**Jared calls it my bitch face.**_

I studied his face for a minute. **Resting bitch face.**

 _ **Resting bitch face?**_ He laughed.

 **Well, yeah, because you're not quite bitchy yet, but you look like the bitch in you is just going to explode out any second. Even bitchy people need a break from being bitchy.**

Melendez was practically howling with laughter and the movement of someone behind him covering their ears against the onslaught of noise caught my attention.

That's when I saw him. The man of my dreams. He was relatively average in height, just a head taller than my 5 foot 8 inches, with dark brown hair that was cut neat and short around his face. He had beautiful dark blue eyes and was oddly pale, despite the near-constant California sunshine. Maybe he just didn't tan well.

I had no idea who he was—yet—but I was internally thanking God for being so kind and generous as to bring me here to this stranger, which was weird, even for me. I only heard Melendez's voice peripherally—I was too busy staring like a creeper—as he introduced them to me.

"The two people behind me are Dr. Claire Browne and Dr. Shaun Murphy. They are also a part of our team, so you should get to know them in time."

Dr. Shaun Murphy. Even his name fit him.

I smiled at the two doctors, offering them my hand. **Dr. Browne, Dr. Murphy, my name is Dr. Airan. I am very pleased to meet you both.** __

Melendez was still shaking with laughter, as he backed into the wall and doubled over, so there was no translation as I held out my hand to them; Dr. Browne shook hands with me, but Dr. Murphy just smiled and nodded.

He was autistic—I knew it—and I related him to my daughter, who was probably further on the autism spectrum than him. He didn't like physical touch, and neither did Hannah. I put my hand down, knowing that Hannah's issue with it was that she didn't feel like she had a choice in the matter. Maybe Dr. Murphy was the same.

I looked over at Jared out of the corner of my eye—he was still laughing, so I shot him a warning look. There was still no translation. **Will you shake hands with me?**

Dr. Murphy smiled, nodding, and then shook hands with me. I smiled, too, and let go of his hand. Melendez started giving us instructions. "We're not splitting up today, on account of this being Dr. Airan's first day. She needs to get used to working with us, and I think that having us all work together is the best way to introduce her to all our different personalities and styles of dealing with patients. We can also learn from her, too."

I smiled. He was right. I needed to learn as much as I could about their personalities and bedside manners, and they needed to learn mine. Melendez grinned at my reaction. "Our first case is of a young boy with an unexplained heart anomaly. He is five years old. He has been here alone for a week, with no one to visit him, and that makes it difficult to treat him, because there is only so much we can tell him."

Poor baby. I connected with young children—because I often related them to Hannah—and the cases of little babies really broke my heart. I walked with the team down the hallway, me ending up next to Dr. Murphy as he walked. I was able to get a good look at him from my vantage point and I found that he was actually very attractive.

He was very tall, and very pale with his dark hair cut short. His hair was not exactly black, but a dark brown—a brunette—and I could see that his facial hair had been cut short. I noticed that he had beautiful eyes that I thought were blue. They were accentuated by his powder blue button-down shirt and the white doctor's coat that he wore over it. The gray lettering of his coat read like this:

 _San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital_

 _Shaun Murphy, MD_

He completed his ensemble by wearing black pants and a brown belt. He must have noticed that I was looking at him and looked back at me awkwardly, as I noticed that he held his hands in a certain way—with his hands carefully clasped and his fingers wound together—and looked away immediately when I looked at him.

I smiled; he was very much like Hannah and I related the two of them to each other. They would be really good friends, if they didn't have the same fear of communication. He seemed to have a question for me, but didn't know sign language, so I mutely pointed at Jared, and he tapped him on the shoulder.

Dr. Murphy said something to him, and Kalu fell back to take my other side. I signed carefully. **What is the question, Murphy?**

"My question is do you happen to know someone with autism? You seem to understand entirely too much about it."

 **Yes. My daughter. She's four and was diagnosed last year.** Murphy looked shocked—I guess he never thought that I knew so much about it from having a child with it.

I continued with no pause. **Her autism is so severe that I have to make accommodations with where we live and who we live around, because not everyone would accept her. Our nearest neighbors are over two miles away now, because they hated my girl and I am a single parent, so there was no other option but move away from them. She is very much like you—she hates being touched, hates eye contact, is very rigid with her diet, and fixates on things. Her favorite thing is a toy stethoscope that I bought for her.**

I smiled. **But I suppose this is her story, so I should tell you about her. Her name is Hannah Grace, she loves bananas, apples and grapes, but hates chocolate, because she says it tastes too sweet. She dislikes the color red, because it is too bright, so her dresses are blacks, blues, browns and greens. She hates music, but loves to draw and I'm her favorite subject. I'm so proud of her and so blessed to have her. I really had to learn how to re-parent her when she was diagnosed.**

He laughed and then we both sobered up as we went into the little boy's hospital room. He was laying in his bed—as he should have been because any doctor with half-a-brain-cell would tell him not to get up and walk that much—but was propped up with his pillows. He was alone, with no one there to visit him, and I felt so sad for him.

I stood in the corner of the room, watching him. He began to cry—maybe at the fact that he finally had visitors, the fact that he was going to have to go through surgery by himself or any of the above—and I just stepped forward, as he threw himself into my arms. He hugged me tightly, and I felt myself go into parental mode; I sat down next to him, just holding him as he cried.

It would be okay, hopefully. It definitely wasn't fair to him, to be alone, and I didn't know his situation, but I just felt horrible for him. Maybe it was the mother in me—okay, it was definitely the mother in me, but I just felt terrible for this baby, and he didn't deserve this. He slumped gently against my shoulder and I gently pulled away.

He laid back in his bed, but didn't let go of my hand as he smiled at me, and I grinned back. He was a sweet kid, and reminded me a lot of my son—my baby, who died when he was three from meningitis—if he had survived to grow to the age of seven. That stabbed me in the heart, and twisted the metaphorical knife in deep, but I still smiled.

It was my chance to help a boy who looked like my son reincarnated. His dark eyes looked up at me, and then he signed to me. **Hi, I'm Hunter. I'm deaf.**

I signed back, the grin not slipping from my face. _**My name is Dr. Airan, but, as you're my patient, you can call me Emilie if you'd like. I am mute.**_

 _ **Emily? Like E-M-I-L-Y?**_

I shook my head—for the benefit of the others. **No. E-M-I-L-I-E. The pronunciation is the same, though.**

 _ **You remind me of my mommy, but you're nicer. She and Daddy left me when I was two. Ever since then, I've been in foster care, basically alone.**_

 **That's horrible. You don't deserve that. How many homes were you in?**

 _ **I've been in one hundred homes so far. I want to be adopted, but none of the families wanted me.**_

 **Well, I'm sure you'll find a really good home soon. You'll find good parents who will love you.**

 _ **I don't think so.**_

 **Why do you not?**

 _ **All of my foster parents told me that I was not going to become anything other than a horrible person.**_

 **Do you know what people like that don't like? When you do well. Never give up, sweetheart. You will find someone someday.** I smiled, then beginning to explain the surgery.

 **Okay, buddy, we have to do surgery on you for your heart. We're going to make sure that you are in a really good sleep, so you won't notice at all until we've done it. You'll be sore afterward and be on painkillers for a while, but you have a good prognosis so you will likely be okay. As for your foster parents not being here to consent to the surgery, the hospital's contacting them to tell them what's going on.**

Hunter immediately freaked out. _**No! You can't! They'll be really mad!**_

I cocked my head to the side in question. **Mad at what, sweetheart? It's not your fault that you had to have surgery.**

 _ **They hate me.**_

 **Is that why you are here alone?**

 _ **Yeah. The pain was so bad that I ran away and came here for help.**_

 **I can't just not tell, though. That's against my protocol. I can tell you that if they attack you in here, I will protect you. I'm trained in martial arts.**

Hunter stayed for two more days before his surgery and a week afterward. His foster parents did come and instead of being supportive of their foster son as he underwent heart surgery, they attacked him. His foster mother tried to crack him over the head with a plastic chair, while his foster father put him in a head lock and tried to choke him.

I dragged his father off of him, throwing him out the door into the hallway where security was already waiting—someone had called them for me—to take him away. His mother got a _hard_ punch in the side of the head, knocking her unconscious, and she was dragged outside. Hunter was crying and gasping, and I sat down with him. He had a half-inch long knot on the back of his head with severe bruising around it—his foster mother had gotten him fairly well with the chair—and I did the first thing that I could think of.

I called for Murphy.

I did this by picking up the phone off the hook in Hunter's hospital room, and using the electronic voice generator app on my phone. The intercom in the hospital beeped for an emergency, and so I just had to let it beep for a second, while I got my app together and typed in what I wanted it to say.

 _Dr. Murphy, please report to room 312. Dr. Airan requests your assistance with a patient who has a traumatic brain injury._

I put the phone back on the hook, and took a deep breath before turning to Hunter. **It's okay, buddy. I called our other pediatric surgeon up to help me with this. He's much smarter than I am, and we have to get this right. We'll probably have to rush you back to the pediatric ICU if it's as bad as I think.**

 _ **How bad do you think it is?**_

 **I believe that it is a subdermal hematoma, but its position at the back of your head makes it both tricky to operate on and leaves you vulnerable to complications, which is why I don't want to do surgery if we can avoid it. You got your bell rung pretty good, though, sweetheart. I'm really sorry, but we may have to.**

 _ **It's okay. I understand.**_ He took my hand. _**If I come out of this alive, I want you to be my foster mom. You'd make an awesome mom for any kid.**_

 **I have a daughter of my own, sweetie. I don't know whether she'd go for that, but I'll think about it. That's the best I can promise you for now, okay?**

 _ **Okay.**_

By the time Murphy came up to Hunter's room, he had vomited on himself and fallen unconscious. We had to rush him to pediatric intensive care, and put him on an oxygen mask to help him breathe. He was put on a feeding tube and in a medically-induced coma due to the position of the subdermal hematoma—I had been right in my assessment of his injury-

Hunter's poor little body lay, pale and still, in the smaller-than-normal bed. Pediatric Intensive Care was slightly different than the Adult Intensive Care just down the hall. With children, we encouraged their parents to stay and sit with them in case they woke up suddenly, meaning that visiting hours were a little looser, but it was so late at night now that I knew that I'd get chewed up and spit out if Dr. Glassman found out that I was here.

I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. I gasped and spun, my hand raised to strike whoever was behind me and Murphy jumped back, his hands held up. "Do not punch me."

I slowly lowered my hand, unclenching it, before signing. **Then don't scare me. I'm a fighter, not a runner.**

He nodded, stepping to stand next to me. "You have been torturing yourself with this boy's condition. You have to stop."

 **Is this your version of a pep talk? You really need lessons on delivery if this is it.**

"Let me say this—I have been thinking this for the past week and I need to say it. You are a brilliant person, and doctor, Dr. Airan, but one of your downfalls is that you become entirely too involved with your patients. You become more than their doctor and the boundaries become blurred. You cannot let yourself get too close to them, because when something bad happens to them, you become a mess, just as you are now. You have to stop."

 **It's not that easy. I know how it feels to lose a child and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. And we, as doctors, are supposed to get involved when we can help.**

"When we can help, yes. You have done all you can."


	3. Chapter 3: Oliver

It was the next morning when Melendez spoke carefully to us. "Do any of you know the viability time for a liver?"

"Do you not?" Dr. Murphy immediately shot back, to my great amusement. I was immediately smiling, and biting my lower lip, trying really hard not to laugh. Melendez turned slowly, dramatically, and glared spectacularly at his youngest surgical resident. He looked nonplussed at the display, which made me want to laugh harder. I leaned back in my chair with a bright grin on my face and Murphy winked at me. That was funny. Dr. Murphy's dry humor mixed with his brilliant recall and impeccable timing was hilarious to me, though most other people would be and were offended and/or annoyed by some of his comments.

Melendez turned on me. "Why is this so funny to you, Dr. Airan?"

 **Because, besides the fact that I was feeling like shit and needed something to laugh about today, Murphy's right. Why would you ask us a question you already know the answer to?** I thought about the actual question for a moment, signing quickly, after my brain rifled through all the information I had learned about organ transplants and donations. **Less than twelve hours. After twelve hours, the cells begin to die and the organ becomes non-transplantable.**

"Precisely. Well done, Airan. We're going to have to have a discussion about your preamble later, though."

My smile was immediately dropped and my face became stony. **I don't want to talk about it, Melendez. Leave it alone or you'll find out something about me you never wanted to know. My ass will be gone quicker than Kalu can eat a bowl of ice cream if that ever comes up again. Just let it go.** I grinned again, trying to recreate my previous smile, but it had slipped away from me now and Murphy looked confused. I ignored him. **Now, we have a liver for Chuck. Where is it?**

"San Francisco Municipal Hospital."

 **How are we going to get it?**

"I am going to split you into pairs—Claire and Jared will stay here and assist me in preparing Chuck for the surgery and you and Shaun will take a trip to go get the liver."

I remembered what Dr. Glassman had said to me when I spoke about what I could do to connect with Shaun. I knew that it would be difficult to do, and that he was one of the strangest people I ever met, but I was willing to make the effort. I would have to make my own connection with him, find my own way in, as Glassman had told me. That was exactly what most of my friends had to do to become my friends, and I had two or three extra barriers, mutism being just one. Because of my mutism, my social skills were straight-up shit, and Shaun had so much difficulty bonding with others that I was unlikely to connect at all and would just become another person he knew and lost along the way.

Melendez smiled at me. "The helicopter is going to arrive in thirty minutes."

I closed my eyes. Helicopter. Oh, god. I immediately remembered my last helicopter ride—after Adam beat the absolute living hell out of me, leaving me with fourteen broken ribs, both of my arms and legs broken with a bat, bruising that covered my entire face, bleeding on my brain, broken blood vessels in both my eyes, and bleeding in my eyes—and felt my own heart start racing at the memory. Melendez gently touched my shoulder and my eyes shot open, to see his concerned face, despite the fact that he had been giving us the _fuck you all_ routine since I started at Bonaventure.

"Did you have a bad experience with a helicopter?"

 **Yeah. Four months ago.**

"What happened?"

 **Before I came here, my ex-husband tried to kill me, and I was brought by helicopter to Texas A &M Medical Center for treatment. I was hospitalized for three months, with nineteen broken bones, serious bruising and slices on my face, blunt force trauma to my head, seizures, swelling, brain bleeds, and eventually fell into a coma. I've still got the 23 stitches in my head and a metal plate to hold my skull together. **

"Good God, Airan. I'm...I'm not even sure what to say to that. Jesus Christ, that's horrible. Please tell me that you had his ass arrested."

 **Yep. He's doing forty to life in a men's prison in Texas.** **Helicopters scare the Bhagavan out of me, though. Reminds me of that...**

"I'd guess so. They'd scare the piss out of me, too, if I had gone through that. By the way, the what?"

 **Bhagavan is the Hindu word for God.**

"Oh, okay. Do you want me to make Claire take the flight?"

I thought about it and then nodded, my head falling as if I was ashamed of nearly dying. It wasn't that. I was ashamed of being deathly afraid of helicopters because of what Adam did to me. It made me feel weak, like I was some scared little girl. In a sense, I was. Underneath all my tough talk and profanity, I was nothing but a scared little girl who had been hurt so much that I developed a fear of being hurt. I didn't realize that I was crying until Melendez's long, warm arms were around me.

"I understand." He said as I stiffened immediately, surprised at the movement. I never thought that someone as harsh as him would ever hug anyone else. "Alright, Claire. You're going with Shaun. Emilie, you stay with Jared and prepare Chuck for his surgery."

I nodded, looking at Murphy with a small smile. and a thumbs up, never mind the fact that my mascara was running down my face. He had this. He could do it. His bright blue eyes seemed happy at the news that he'd still be going, so my guess was that he probably liked helicopters. Melendez and Jared went inside to begin prepping Chuck and I knew that I should be with them, but Claire had gone to get her stuff and Murphy was standing there by himself. I used my voice generator this time.

"Good job owning Melendez. You just sat his ass down like a boss. Didn't even miss a beat." The odd, electronic voice spoke for me.

"Thank you, Dr. Airan."

"It's Emilie. I heard you talking to Dr. Glassman a couple days ago, telling him about how you loved me. I'm not the safest person to love. There are safer options for you. Take them." I faced away from him now, unable to watch his face as I effectively told him to let whatever love he had for me go. "You deserve better than me."

I suddenly saw him standing in front of me, and he knelt down to my eye level, taking my face in his hands. I was crying again, and this time Murphy cried with me. His tears broke my heart more than mine did, because I cried all the time, just not in front of people. Murphy was the first person I had cried in front of in years. His eyes looked determined, though, and his hands ran down the sides of my neck, making me shiver a little, and then nestled themselves in my collarbones. "I didn't want love, Emilie. But the second I looked into your eyes, I knew that it was too late."

My face was flushed now, but my skin tone made it difficult to see, and my eyes, despite the tear tracks that were drying on my cheeks, glowed with anticipation. He dropped to his knees in front of me, and let me pull him close. I had my hands on the sides of his head, running my fingers through his hair. He then-in the most shocking Shaun Murphy moment both to date and probably ever-kissed me.

He turned his head, letting it rest almost on my shoulder, as I instinctively followed. His warm tongue pressed against my lips, and I immediately let him in. One of my weaknesses was that I couldn't resist it when my partners did that. Melendez would kill us if he caught us like this, though, I knew that much, but I couldn't resist. I could beat myself up for giving in to him later. Murphy then pinned me back into my chair with his arm, and that drove me even crazier. I was holding my arms out uselessly, begging for him to come closer, but he still had me pinned down, and I took to struggling against him. I wanted to hold him, and he wouldn't let me with my arms pinned underneath his.

It took Murphy a minute to realize that I was struggling, but he let me free the second he understood that I didn't want to be pinned anymore. I immediately grabbed him around the shoulders, forcing him to almost sit in my lap. That seemed to surprise him, but he rested his forehead against mine and smiled a little. "I did not know that bondage arouses you, Emilie…"

"Yes. I absolutely love being bound in a sexually way. It freaks me out if it's just like kidnapping or something like that."

"I would never kidnap you or do something that you don't like."

"I know." I leaned back. What neither of us saw was Dr. Morgan Reznick, her blue eyes peeking out from behind the side of the building. She would spread it around to the whole building before the day was done. I went back inside to assist Kalu and Melendez with prepping Chuck for his surgery. Claire came out with a duffel bag and she and Shaun quickly set off on the helicopter. It took an additional two hours for Chuck to be completely prepped for his surgery. I silently prayed, as I removed my heavily bloodstained gloves, that Shaun and Claire could get the liver back in time because he would die without it.

Having done all I could do, I went to visit Hunter in the pediatric ICU, only to find out that he was discharged and sent with his Aunt and Uncle, who took him because his parents had abandoned him and his foster parents refused to keep him any longer. I sighed; he was a great kid, and even though I wasn't able to take him, I hoped that his aunt and uncle didn't beat down his spirit. _Hunter, buddy, I hope you're okay wherever you are._ I thought to myself, before going back up to Surgery. By that time, I learned that Chuck wasn't getting his new liver after all. He had apparently not met the required conditions for a liver transplant, and the liver that Shaun and Claire had brought back would go to another patient that needed one.

So we performed the surgery on that patient and replaced his liver, while Chuck was sent home to die, because there was nothing we could do for him. Shaun and I looked at each other through the masks that covered our mouths. It had been a day and a half. And it wasn't over yet.


End file.
